Thursday, August 21, 2014

Equal access is not possible

The NY Times has a debate on organ selling, and the medical ethics professor says:

If all patients have equal value as humans, then they should have equal access to health care. This stipulation crumbles, however, when organs can be bought and sold.

Values and ethics underpin society and medical practice so health care structures that operate purely on economics are inappropriate.

Payments for organs equates to price tags for them, and who gets to put a price on life?

It is baffling how an expert in the subject could make such a silly argument.

It is simply not possible for everyone to get equal health care. Even if that were desirable, some physicians and medical providers are better than others. People have vastly different needs.

Equal medical care is no more desirable than equal food, housing, transportation, or anything else.

While paying donors for kidneys is illegal outside Iran, patients (or their employers, insurers, welfare benefits, etc) certainly have to pay maybe $100k for a transplant. So they are paying for life. The issue under debate is whether the person making the transplant possible can get some small percentage of the expense.